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Ben Gazzara is not the Jack Flowers I saw in Paul Theroux' novel; he's too self-confident by half. But different in tone as they may be, both Theroux' and Bogdanovich's "Saint Jack" are successes. The location shooting in Singapore and the utter lack of background music are among Bogdanovich's own touches. It's a fine, solid little film, sexy, political and all over bright. Gazzara works as a gofer for a Chinese business to maintain his visa. But his dream is to open his own brothel, which with the backing of a few friends, he does. But the Chinese "mafia" closes him down (the confrontation with a Chinese midget and his musclemen is memorable). And then the CIA, represented by Peter Bogdanovith, subsidizes Flowers in a new brothel for Viet troops on R&R. It lasts as long as the war does (his former Chinese employer rags Gazzara about the Vietnamese victory). Then Gazzara is forced into some sleazy blackmail which, finally, he rejects. A moral decision in a very amoral story. British actor James Villiers has a small but distinctive part as Frogget. In a conversation with bar cronies he says: "The last time I was in UK they made homosexuality legal. I said to my wife, I said let's get out of here before they make it compulsory." This is not on DVD yet. Why the hell not?

Ask most people who brought black actors into serious roles and they'll say Sidney Poitier. Wrong. Before Poitier was James Edwards. Watch him in "Home of the Brave" and "Pork Chop Hill" and no less in this picture. (Ironically, his last role was as a "menial," Scott's orderly in "Patton.") He's been under-appreciated in the sociology of movies.

But Edwards doesn't star here, rather it's Arthur Kennedy, who never quite made it as a lead and was soon regularly cast as a charming villain, much like Dan Duryea before him. Nevertheless, he handles this role, a soldier permanently blinded in the war undergoing extensive VA rehabilitation, as well as could be done. We learn things about blindness in "Bright Victory," about its lows and the courage it takes to cope with it. The racist issue is secondary but by no means muted. It may be a little simplistic to proclaim that the racist divide is simply a visual prejudice--that to a blind man everybody is the same color--but it's a start.

Another important prejudice issue is about handicaps. Kennedy's high school sweetheart has to finally reject him because she realizes she can't cope with his blindness (contrast with "The Best Years of Our Lives"). Even his parents have to teach themselves to deal with it.

It's a tough-minded film, all in all, unique in its way, not meant to be "heartwarming" as films about the handicapped seem to have to be these days.

As did Red Skelton in his time, Dom DeLuise has a very sweet on-screen persona. He's the kind of guy you'd trust your kids to.

Anne Bancroft, a multi-talented lady sorely missed, wrote and directed a picture here on a topic not ever before focused on, overeating. Given that the US has become the fattest country on earth and the most obsessed with weight loss, it's surprising no filmmaker has ever taken the topic on the way they have drugs or drinking or racism. Maybe it's just too close to home.

The funny thing is that DeLuise himself, unlike some of the bit players in the picture, is not all that fat, seriously chubby, to be sure, not bathing suit material, but not really obese. Never mind. He's told he is and thinks he is and has a hell of a confused and guilty time with it. "Why does everybody want me to be skinny?" he asks himself. "I'm not such a bad guy."

The "message," that love conquers all shortcomings, including gluttony, is a little pat and predictable. But it would be churlish to come down hard on such a well-meaning, well- written, well-directed and well-played comedy. Catch it when you can.